New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar on Monday decided to call a meeting of the floor leaders on Tuesday to nail the members making wild allegations in the House to decide on a mechanism to force authenticity by them.
He took the decision when AAP member Sanjay Singh alleged misuse of the Enforcement Directorate in raids on 3,000 political leaders but there were only 23 convictions, i.e. less than 0.5%.
Amid strong protest by the ruling benches, the Chairman ruled the facts should be substantiated like the legally admissible data. Opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge stood in support of Mr Sanjay Singh, noting that the members refer to replies by the Government or reports by journalists during Zero Hour.
He said Mr Narendra Modi had promised to deposit `15 lakh in every person's bank accounts in 2014 and its authenticity can be determined by the words (jabaan) of the Prime Minister.
While Leader of the House and Minister Piyush Goyal challenged the claim of 3,000 political raids by the ED as “erroneous”, and moreover, the law does not give immunity to the political leaders as implied in the mention, Ms Sanjay Singh contested him saying 3,000 ED raids were not his concoction or imagination but a reply to Ms Priyanka Chaturvedi by the Government in the House.
Mr Dhankhar said his concern was the Rajya Sabha platform should not be used to make allegations, which the MPs cannot substantiate.
Never refer to anyone’s caste or religion: Speaker
New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday warned members against referring to anyone's caste and religion in the House after a Congress MP alleged that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made certain remarks about his proficiency in Hindi because he belonged to a particular community.
Taking serious exception to the word used by Congress member AR Reddy to refer to his own social category during the Question Hour, the Speaker pointed out that people have not elected the members to Lok Sabha based on their caste and religion.
“Anyone here should never use such words in the House. Otherwise, I will have to take action against such a member,” the Speaker warned.
Mr Birla also took serious exception to the Congress member asking the Speaker not to “interrupt” him when he was asking a question.
Mr Birla asked the Congress leader in the House, Mr Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, to help his party members understand they should never make such comments about the Speaker.
Mr Birla said, “You are the Leader of the House. Make members understand that they should never comment on the Speaker in the future 'that you (Speaker) cannot interrupt'. Did you understand what I said?”
The issue appeared as Mr Reddy began asking a question on the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's earlier remark when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister that the rupee was in the ICU (intensive care unit).
“Sir, you cannot interrupt,” Mr Reddy said as the Speaker objected to his comment and directed him to limit himself to asking the question.
